Since 1981, the Secretary and the Chief of Staff of the
Army have designated an annual central theme as a means of focusing attention
on those things that are important and necessary to the Army. For 1986 the
theme was Values-the fundamental values of the military profession. Most basic
among these, the Secretary and the Chief of Staff pointed out, are loyalty,
duty, selfless service, and integrity. Beneath these overarching values, they
observed, our soldierly and ethical standards and qualities-commitment,
competence, candor, and courage-are nurtured and given opportunity for growth.
Such nurturing and growth must take place in peacetime because war does not
allow time for such processes.

This emphasis on basic values came at a time when the
quality of the men and women serving in the Army was extraordinarily
excellent. As the Army's leaders contemplated their responsibility to ensure
the most thorough possible preparation for any future war or other
contingency, they could take satisfaction in knowing that the ideals they
championed would reach an audience that was potentially highly receptive. How
to maintain that excellence and that level of receptivity was a primary
concern as the Army began the year.

Increased recruiting resources and expertise, enlistment
bonuses, the new G.I. bill, the new Army College Fund, and "quality-of-life"
programs provide incentives that help attract and keep the soldiers that the
Army must have. Actions to improve recruiting facilities and lease new ones
where needed also contribute to recruiting successes. But erosion of benefits
or programs, and changes in demographics, could hamper future recruiting
efforts. Therefore, the Chief of Staff at the beginning of fiscal year 1986
stressed the desirability of continuing these programs that aid in attracting
and keeping highly qualified people.

Expanding on this point, the Vice Chief of Staff emphasized
the importance of retaining noncommissioned officers whose

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leadership skills and technical talents make them
attractive to employers outside the Army. Should these soldiers leave the
Army, increased pressure would be brought to bear on the recruiting market at
a time when the national economy is improving and the available pool of 17- to
21-year-olds is decreasing. Therefore, the Vice Chief stated, the Army must
pay NCOs competitive wages, reimburse them properly for the moves that the
government orders them and their families to make, and provide them with
appropriate living and working conditions. These desiderata, he observed,
apply equally to young officers.

Within the NCO corps, imbalances in military occupational
specialties and pay grades have presented a problem that the Army attacked in
earnest in fiscal year 1985. The objective of the corrective program was to
reduce to the lowest practicable levels, by the end of 1986, the 29,000
overages and shortages in grades E-5 to E-9 that existed at the beginning of
1985.

In 1986 the Army continued to select outstanding NCOs from
all military occupational specialties for formal training at the Defense Equal
Opportunity Management Institute. Graduates were detailed for single tour
assignments as equal opportunity advisers, generally at brigade level. In
these positions they could keep track of promotion, punishment, awards,
discharge, reenlistment, and indiscipline rates, and thereby help commanders
monitor considerations of race and gender. The Deputy Chief of Staff for
Personnel cautioned that although the equal opportunity environment remained
positive throughout the Army at the start of the year, leaders at all levels
must continue to maintain active programs. He noted:

There are many who might argue that the necessity for equal
opportunity efforts in the Army is history. Each year, however, the Army
recruits about 140,000 new soldiers, all with biases and prejudices. The focus
of an equal opportunity catalyst must include these new accessions to shape a
positive climate today and for our future Army.

The Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel also discussed, as
an integral element of recruitment and retention, the general objective of
fostering wholesome families and communities. He projected, for 1986, the
introduction of new programs for financial planning assistance and
quarters-based child care, and expansion of existing programs, such as child
care center construction and child development. He also announced that a
program to alleviate financial hardships incurred in permanent change of
station moves would be given high priority. This program would provide
increases in household goods weight

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allowances, travel allowances for dependents of junior
enlisted soldiers in the continental United States (CONUS), mileage allowances
for dependents under two years of age, and temporary lodging in CONUS.
Finally, he stressed accident prevention as a command responsibility,
observing that while all accidents are not preventable, an accident-free
record is the only acceptable goal for Army leaders at any level.

Amplification of this emphasis on recruitment and retention
programs came from the Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics, who at year's
beginning counted among his most important objectives the provision of high
quality services to soldiers and their families. He predicted that operational
changes in the commissary system would bring continued improvements in levels
of service.

Retention in a peacetime army is not a function solely of
material considerations. A sense of pride and belonging in the unit is
essential in creating an atmosphere conducive to retaining good soldiers. The
Chief of Staff expressed his belief that the Army's unit manning system,
consisting of the COHORT (cohesion, operational readiness, and training) unit
movement system and the regimental system, when fully implemented, would
foster such a sense of pride and belonging and produce cohesive, well-bonded,
and stable units.

Over the past few years, declining rates of drug abuse have
contributed to unit stability. Encouraged by this trend and desirous of
maintaining it, the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel at the start of the
fiscal year exhorted commanders to constantly enforce Army policy on drug
abuse and to pursue an aggressive urinalysis program. He also stated his
determination to see alcohol deglamorized and to have leaders shape a climate
in which alcohol abuse and resulting misconduct would not be tolerated.
Further, he cautioned that enrollment in rehabilitation programs should not
carry a stigma for problem drinkers, and he urged that those recovering under
such programs be totally integrated into units by being returned to jobs for
which they are trained.

The Chief of Staff, mindful that the Army also depends on
its civilian work force for essential functions, noted that the Army faces
challenges in recruiting, retaining, and motivating an increasingly
professional work force, and in ensuring adequate support of civilian
personnel. He set as a goal the stabilization of civilian strength at slightly
above 400,000 through the substitution of capital for labor and the
development of the best possible organizations.

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Just as recruiting and retaining people of high quality is
important, so too is providing them with the best possible training to prepare
them to carry out their missions. At the beginning of the fiscal year, the
Commander, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), noted that
several years before the Army had

adopted operational art as a separate division of military
studies, restoring the study of theater-level operations to doctrine after an
absence of almost 30 years. By installing the operational level of war between
strategy and tactics, the Army acknowledged that the planning and conduct of
campaigns and the linking of military means to political goals merited
separate study. So far, this change has stimulated thought and study at Ft.
Leavenworth schools and has provoked some discussion in military journals, but
the operational level of war has yet to receive critical attention in the
forces in the field.

He went on to say that only a deliberate and effective
training effort would alter this situation in the field, since neither the
Army's senior leaders nor middle-grade officers possessed training or
experience in the operational level of war. Over the years, joint training
programs, vastly overshadowed by tactical subjects, had slipped almost out of
existence. The Army, therefore, would have to recover a lot of ground before
it could convert the tenets of the AirLand Battle doctrine of maneuver warfare
into a real operational capability. The TRADOC commander declared that efforts
under way at the Command and General Staff College and the School for Advanced
Military Studies at Fort Leavenworth would do much to correct the deficiency
by training and educating officers in the operational level of war. These
efforts, he stated, would be reinforced by the publication in the fall of 1985
of a revised edition of Field Manual (FM) 100-5, Operations, which
would more precisely describe the nature of the operational art, place it in
its proper relationship to tactics, and provide considerations for defensive
and offensive campaign planning. He also expected the publication at about the
same time as the manual for corps operations and the operations of echelons
above corps.

More effective training in the execution of AirLand Battle
doctrine, the TRADOC commander predicted, would come as the Army made the
transition from the current family of manual training simulations to
computer-driven simulations. He forecast the increased use of these aids by
commanders and battle staffs from battalion through corps. Device-based
training, he expected, would continue to grow as an effective alternative to
training with major hardware in the field.

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Well-trained troops cannot be effective on the modern
battlefield without the proper equipment. The Chief of Staff expressed the
Army's clear understanding of this truth when he stated at the beginning of
the fiscal year that "providing the American soldier with better equipment
than his enemy is the Army's goal." His confidence that this goal was being
met was implicit in his observation that "superb systems like the M1 Abrams
tank, the M2 Bradley fighting vehicle, the multiple-launch rocket system . . .
and the Black Hawk helicopter are being fielded with great success despite
some growing pains with quality assurance."

At about the same time, the Vice Chief of Staff cautioned
that the pace of modernization of close-combat equipment could and should be
accelerated. He also emphasized that it is essential to bring in rapidly the
deep-attack weapons systems that are an integral part of AirLand Battle
doctrine. Even in the face of restrictions imposed by limited funds, he urged
that the Army "look ahead to provide the equipment necessary to realize the
full promise of AirLand Battle doctrine." A major result of this realization,
he observed, would be a raising of the nuclear threshold.

As the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans
noted, modernization was continuing as rapidly as funding and production
schedules permitted. In his sober appraisal,

More than the other services, the Army's weapons and
equipment replacement processes were hindered by the economic requirements of
the Vietnam war. We are only now embarked on our first real wave of extensive
force modernization; but, with the recent reductions in budget authority, we
may be forced to stretch out programs, to slow our efforts markedly and,
perhaps, even to eliminate important development and acquisition initiatives.

On a more positive note, the Deputy Chief of Staff for
Operations and Plans corrected an erroneous view of the equipment readiness of
Army units. In the period 1980-85, equipment-on-hand ratings often showed a
decline, even though the Army was fielding new materiel. This anomaly, the
Deputy Chief of Staff explained, came about because changes in authorization
documents had preceded equipment deliveries in units scheduled for
modernization. Unit status reports, which indicate what percentage of its
authorized equipment a unit has on hand, therefore had implied that units were
not ready for combat, even though they actually still possessed their full
authorization of older equipment. The Deputy Chief of Staff reported that the
Army is working toward the elimination of

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such distortions through improved synchronization of
equipment fielding and documentation changes. He also pointed out that the
unit status report is not designed to reflect improvements in fighting
ability; a battalion equipped with new M1 tanks will report the same unit
status as one equipped with older M60 tanks, despite the greater fighting
capability of the modernized battalion. As a corrective, the Army has
developed a system called "measuring improved capability of Army forces,"
which shows that the Army's divisional fighting capability increased by 18
percent in the five years ending with fiscal 1985. The Deputy Chief of Staff
projected an increase of 55 percent by fiscal year 1988, assuming
congressional support of the fiscal 1986 budget and a two-year funded delivery
period.

Fighting capability is of the utmost importance at a time
when a rough parity with the Soviet Union at a strategic nuclear level has
increasingly shifted the burden of deterrence toward conventional forces. The
Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans stressed the need for forces in
being that are capable of rapid response to the signals of aggression. These
forces must be able to react during the critical pre-conflict stage or to
arrive in threatened regions in sufficient time to gain a tactical edge for
following forces. In the succinct expression of the Secretary and the Chief of
Staff of the Army, "Readiness is our number one mission."

Readiness obviously includes preparation not only for the
early stages of conflict, but also for large-scale conventional war. For that
reason the Secretary and the Chief of Staff, in the Army's posture statement
for fiscal 1986, emphasized continued support for improvements in full-time
reserve component manning and other aspects of reserve component readiness.
With a mandated end-strength of 780,800 for the active component, the need for
increased reliance on the reserve components is patent.

Writing at the start of the fiscal year, the Chief of Staff
showed his concern with another crucial aspect of readiness-strategic sealift.
He stated the Army's need to support programs that respond to the decline of
the Merchant Marine fleet and to industry containerization trends that move
away from more militarily useful breakbulk cargo sealift programs. The Army,
he noted, is supporting the Navy's programmed increases to the Ready Reserve
Force (part of the National Defense Reserve Fleet) and programs to allow
modification of container ships to meet unit equipment movement require-

[8]

ments. To complement increased Navy sealift while holding
the line on personnel strength, the Army has programmed increases in its
ability to participate in joint logistics-over-the-shore operations-in other
words, to better unload equipment from ships in areas with austere or
nonexistent port facilities.

Once in the area of operations, troops must be sustained,
and the nation's ability to do that has long been an object of concern. The
Secretary and the Chief of Staff, describing the Army's posture for fiscal
1986, judged that while significant gains have been made in our ability to
sustain our fighting forces, much work remains. In the fall of 1985, the Chief
of Staff pointed to the pre-positioning of materiel configured to unit sets (POMCUS)
as an important area requiring more increases to improve readiness. Under
POMCUS, the Army stores organizational equipment in company- and
battalion-sized packages at locations near where conflict may occur. The Chief
of Staff also commented on the state of the Army's physical plant, which would
be a vital element in the sustainment of forces in combat. Past underfunding
for the maintenance of facilities has led to a massive backlog of work needed
to maintain aging real property assets. Progress is being made, however, and
the Chief of Staff hopes to be able to continue to partially offset growing
annual maintenance requirements while reducing the maintenance backlog to a
manageable level.

Another aspect of sustainment extends into the force
structure because the Army places heavy reliance on the reserve components to
perform vital combat service support functions in time of conflict.
Maintenance is an especially significant area in this regard. Over 70 percent
of the Army's nondivisional maintenance companies are assigned to the reserve
components. At the beginning of the fiscal year, the Deputy Chief of Staff for
Logistics stated that the Army must ensure that the reserve component
maintenance force is equipped with the tools and test equipment necessary to
maintain newly fielded equipment for the active and reserve component units
that they would be supporting in wartime. He focused on the Regional
Maintenance Training Site program as one among several initiatives designed to
provide qualified soldiers for combat service support units. This program
brings together facilities, instructors, training devices, equipment, test
sets, and special tools to support training at twenty-one proposed regional
maintenance training sites geographically dispersed within the continental
United States. The Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics projected that in 1986
the Army would establish

Production of equipment is also a matter of great concern
to those charged with responsibilities related to sustainment of the forces in
time of combat. Plans for mobilization of the manufacturing capacity of U.S.
industry involve billions of dollars; but as the Deputy Chief of Staff for
Research, Development, and Acquisition noted at the start of the year, these
plans have not been well supported in the past. He declared the Army's
intention to focus on this issue in the future, but he added that it would
have to be done within the constraints of a limited budget.

What forces might need to be sustained, and where, are
questions that the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans addressed
when he stated that "the ability to respond across the spectrum of conflict,
on varied terrains and in differing environments, requires a total force
posture that is flexible, effective and balanced." For the Chief of Staff,
there is an "important challenge" in achieving the optimum balance between
heavy and light forces, the active and reserve components, combat and support
forces, and forward-deployed and U.S.-based forces. And all this must be done
while modernizing the force structure.

To achieve this balance, the Army has embarked on an
evolutionary process involving both the active and the reserve components. As
related by the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans, the midterm
goal is a 28-division land force that will provide strategic flexibility,
broad utility, and joint fighting capability. In addition to several
initiatives already in train involving the 7th Infantry Division (Light), the
10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), a third Ranger battalion and a Ranger
regimental headquarters, and an expanded aviation structure, the Deputy Chief
of Staff noted at year's beginning that programs were taking shape to activate
the 6th and the 29th (an Army National Guard division) Infantry Divisions
(Light) and to convert the 25th Infantry Division to the new design. He
expected the light infantry division structuring process to conclude by 1989,
as the challenges of building facilities for stationing the new units are
overcome.

In addition, the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans cited the redesigning
of the 82d Airborne, 101st Airborne (Air Assault), and 2d Infantry Divisions,
and the 9th Infantry Division (Motorized). Also, he noted that the Army was
continuing to streamline the "Division 86" design, with all

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fourteen heavy divisions being so modified. Most of the
space savings from these modifications are being applied to improving corps
fighting capabilities, in line with the renewed emphasis on the operational
level of war.

The Chief of Staff pointed to the Army's success in
increasing the number of active Army combat battalions while maintaining a
constant, active duty military strength. Manpower to form these battalions has
been freed through internal restructuring efforts, along with unit
productivity improvements, civilian substitution, and increased reliance on
host-nation support and the reserve components. More new battalions will be
formed in the future, the Chief of Staff promised.

A challenge articulated by the Deputy Chief of Staff for
Operations and Plans is the need, on the one hand, to increase opportunities
for leaders at all levels to receive full-time schooling and specialized
training commensurate with new doctrine and equipment, while on the other hand
continuing to man active component units at an appropriate level of strength.
"Within a necessarily constrained end strength," the Deputy Chief of Staff
observed, "we face some difficult compromises in balancing professional
development requirements with the need to keep adequate numbers of leaders in
our units." Speaking in general of force balancing and modernization, he
declared that "we will proceed on our current course, perhaps at a slower
rate, but with the eventual realization of our major objective-a modern,
quality Total Force, designed and equipped to perform its mission."

In line with this aim, the Deputy Chief of Staff for
Logistics at the start of the fiscal year declared his intention to continue a
review of the structure of logistical units. The aim is to make these units
less manpower intensive and more equipment intensive, with a focus on
commercial equipment. He also discussed a civilian logistics manpower study,
under way, which is to identify potentially significant improvements in
productivity as well as areas for potential savings in civilian manpower.

Saving manpower and money was also a result sought in the
pooling of resources stemming from an Army-Air Force memorandum of agreement
signed in May 1984. That agreement established thirty-one initiatives (several
more were added later), of which fifteen had been implemented by the end of
fiscal year 1985; the remainder were to be completed in 1986.

An important Army management initiative was inaugurated
with the appointment in fiscal year 1985 of a Competition Ad-

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vocate General, whose function is to reduce obstacles to
the competitive acquisition of high quality goods and services. As enunciated
by the Chief of Staff, the Army sought to achieve the following goals through
the Competition Advocate General and a variety of other means of managing the
research, development, and acquisition process: better planning, improved
management information systems, greater use of multiyear contracting, improved
risk analysis, and better quality assurance management.

The Army Materiel Command is overhauling the way the Army
develops and buys weapons, improving quality and accelerating the equipment
development and fielding cycles. As stated by the Chief of Staff, the goal is
to limit development to four years (two years for product improvement) and to
test technology in the field with troops in order to identify and hasten the
development of promising concepts. The Chief of Staff also declared that the
Army must increase its use of state-of-the-art, commercial items produced in
existing commercial facilities.

By the summer of 1986, the Army expected to establish at
the Ballistic Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, its
first network of supercomputers. This increase in computer power promised to
give the Army Materiel Command's designers their first opportunity to analyze
complete weapons systems-an analysis that the Chief of Staff predicted would
ultimately reduce development and life cycle system costs, shorten development
time, conserve scarce materials, and provide optimum weapons systems
performance.

The Chief of Staff enumerated several other series of
management challenges that the Army faces in equipment modernization and
integration. First, the successful integration of new equipment and the
transfer or rehabilitation of displaced equipment will require the application
of a variety of management skills. (In a related matter, the Deputy Chief of
Staff for Logistics expected property disposal operations to improve further
in 1986, when all policies on materiel returns and excess management issues
were to be consolidated into a single publication.) Second, to prepare for the
1990s and beyond, the Army must place greater emphasis on "leverage"
technologies that offer the potential for innovative, revolutionary change in
military systems. Third, the Army is committed to exploring all opportunities
to save weight, reduce cost, and improve performance through the use of
advanced materials in Army equipment.

[12]

In resource management, the Chief of Staff stated, Army
commanders must use innovative approaches to meet the challenges associated
with fixed active military and civilian strengths and limited funds. He cited
as an example a new concept of financing the construction of facilities to
support the stationing of the 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry) at Fort
Drum, New York. The Army's objective here is to gain high quality facilities
more quickly at the least cost through increased state and local government
participation and through private sector involvement in raising and operating
a division post.

One of the most crucial fields in Army management is that
involving information; thus the Chief of Staff in 1984 created the information
mission area, which encompasses all major areas of Army information:
strategic, tactical, and sustaining base. The Army's goal, as stated by the
Assistant Chief of Staff for Information Management, is to deemphasize these
three areas' boundaries by creating a single, comprehensive, fully integrated
Army information architecture-to have one completely interoperable information
base. This base is to include various computer systems for information
processing, the communication links to interconnect information flow at all
echelons, and the standardization essential for common language and functional
support. In an era of rapidly expanding information technology, the Assistant
Chief of Staff observed, the Army seeks to maintain technological currency,
avoid obsolescence, and provide a method for incorporating improved technology
into existing systems without disrupting information support to the Army in
peacetime, during transition to war, or in wartime. The information management
program designed to achieve this goal, he noted, is in place; the challenge is
to ensure its smooth execution.